Protopresbyter Alexander Schmemann

The Western Rite

Notes and Comments

The article of my esteemed colleague Father W. S. Schneirla in the
Spring 58 issue of the Quarterly and the recent Edict of
the Syrian Archdiocese authorizing, under certain conditions, the use
of the Western Rite within the Antiochian jurisdiction make the
problem on the Orthodox Western Liturgy a very urgent issue for the
Orthodox Church in America. It calls for much thinking and a very
careful study of its various theological, spiritual and practical
implications. The Edict signed by Metropolitan Antony Bashir
specifies that:

". . . The mode of reception of groups desiring to employ
the western rite and the character of the rites to be used, as well
as the authorization of official liturgical texts, either in Latin or
a vernacular, or customs, shall be determined in each instance by a
commission of Orthodox Theologians familiar with this field . .
."

In this brief article, I do not pretend to even mention all the
aspects of so complicated a matter. All I want is to raise a few
questions which in my opinion are especially important.

Let me first of all make it clear that theoretically I find myself
in basic agreement with Father Schneirla. The unity of rite in the
Orthodox Church is comparatively a late phenomenon and the Church
never considered liturgical uniformity a conditio sine qua non
of her unity. No one who knows the history of Christian worship will
deny the richness of the Western liturgical tradition, that
especially of the old and venerable Roman liturgy. One may even ask
whether the liturgical unification performed by Byzantium and which
deprived the Orthodox East of the wonderful liturgies of Alexandria,
Syria, Mesopotamia, etc. was in itself a wholly positive achievement.
Last but not least, it is obvious that in case of an eventual return
of the West to Orthodoxy, the western Church will have her own
Western Liturgy and this will mean a tremendous enrichment of the
Church Universal . . . In all this and thus far my agreement with
Father Schneirla is complete.

My doubts concern not the theoretical, but the practical aspect of
the whole problem. Yet by practical, I mean something much more
important than the simple question of prerequisites which would make
a definite rite formally acceptable as "Orthodox". No
doubt, in advocating the Western Rite, Father Schneirla is ultimately
moved by practical, i.e., missionary considerations: its acceptance
by the Church should make conversion to Orthodoxy easier for Western
Christians. Such is also the main motivation of Metropolitan
Antonys Edict: "it (i.e., the Western Rite) might serve
the . . . purpose of facilitating the conversion of groups of
non-Orthodox Western Christians to the Church . . ." Maybe it is
unfair to point out that the scholarly and objective analysis by Fr.
Schneirla of the various Orthodox experiments in the Western Rite
hardly substantiates this optimistic assertion, for some future
experiment can achieve a greater measure of success in such corporate
conversion. The center of my doubts is not here. For me, the only
important question is: What exactly do we mean by conversion to
Orthodoxy? The following definition will, I presume, be acceptable to
everybody: it is the individual or the corporate acceptance of the
Orthodox faith and the integration in the life of the Church, in the
full communion of faith and love. If this definition is correct,
we must ask: can the "conversion" of a group or a parish,
for which its spiritual leaders have signed a formal doctrinal
statement and which hasretained its Western rite, however purified or
amended, can such a "conversion"  in our present
situation, i.e., in the whole context of the Orthodox Church as she
exists in America today  be considered as a true conversion?
Personally, I doubt it very much. And I consider this growing
interpretation of conversion in terms of a mere jurisdictional
belonging to some Orthodox Diocese, of a "mimimum" of
doctrinal and liturgical requirements and of an almost mechanical
understanding of the "Apostolic Succession" as a very real
danger to Orthodoxy. This means the replacement of Orthodoxy of
"content" by Orthodoxy of "form", which certainly
is not an Orthodox idea. For we believe that Orthodoxy is, above all,
faith that one must live, in which one grows, a communion, a
"way of life" into which one is more and more deeply
integrated. And now, whether we want it or not, this living faith,
this organic spirit and vision of Orthodoxy is being preserved and
conveyed to us mainly if not uniquely, by the Orthodox worship. In
our state of national divisions, of theological weakness, in the lack
of living spiritual and monastic centers, of unpreparedness of our
clergy and laity for more articulate doctrinal and spiritual
teaching, of absence of a real canonical and pastoral care on the
part of the various jurisdictional centers, what holds the Orthodox
Church together, assures its real continuity with tradition and gives
the hope of a revival is precisely the liturgical tradition. It is a
unique synthesis of the doctrinal, ethical and canonical teachings of
Orthodoxy and I do not see how a real integration into the Orthodox
Church, a genuine communion of faith and life may be achieved without
an integration in the Orthodox worship.

I agree with Fr. Schneirla and I have said it on several
occasions, that our liturgical tradition has to be purified from many
local, antiquated and sometimes utterly un-Orthodox elements and
practices. Nevertheless, it stands at present as a living bond of
unity and "koinonia".

And then the last question: is it quite correct to define our rite
as "Eastern" and therefore "foreign to all the Western
Christians have known" to quote the Edict? I would like to
suggest a rather sharp distinction between "Eastern" and
"oriental". No doubt there are many oriental features,
oriental ingredients in our liturgical life. No doubt also, that for
many Orthodox this "orientalism" seems to be the essential
element. But we know that it is not essential and we know that
progressively all these "orientalisms" are being eliminated
in a very natural and spontaneous process of adjustment of our cult
to the American life. But then what remains and what can be described
as "Eastern" is nothing else but the Biblical and the
Patristic "content" of our liturgy. It is essentially and
structurally Biblical and Patristic, and therefore, it is
"eastern" in exactly the same measure in which the Bible
and the Fathers, or rather, the whole Christianity can be termed
"Eastern". But have we not proclaimed time and again in all
our encounters with our Western brothers that it is this
"East" precisely that constitutes the common and the
catholic heritage of the Church and can supply us with a common
language which has been lost or distorted? The Liturgy of St. John
Chrysostom or the Easter Canon of St. John of Damascus, are, I
believe, much closer to that common and Catholic language of the
Church than anything else in any Christian tradition. And I cannot
think of any word or phrase in these services that would be
"foreign" to a Western Christian and would not be capable
of expressing his faith and his experience, if the latter would be
genuinely Orthodox . . .

These considerations, however fragmentary and incomplete, lead to
the following conclusion: I think that in the present situation of
the Orthodox Church in America, the Western Rite, theoretically
justified and acceptable as it is, would, instead of
"facilitating conversion", dangerously multiply spiritual
adventures of which we had too many in the past, and which can but
hinder the real progress of Orthodoxy in the West.